e storm cloud was as perpendicular as a steep
mountain side, and was enormously elevated, and very black. I have
sometimes seen the western side of a summer thunder cloud, which had drawn
a violent gust along beneath it, as elevated and perpendicular, but never
a storm cloud. No cloud of that _depth_, or _intensity_ as exhibited by
its peculiar blackness, ever floated or will float so near the earth,
without inducing a devastating current beneath. After it had passed the
ridges east of the Connecticut valley, its top could be seen for a long
and unusual period over the elevated ranges.

Now that storm was but an _intense portion_ of an extensive stratus-rain
cloud. Such portions frequently exist, and Mr. Redfield admits the fact.
Another like portion, in the same storm, passed over Norfolk, Virginia,
and the adjacent section, where the wind was N. E., and veered round by N.
W. to S. W. Baltimore, and some vessels at sea, were between the two
intense portions of the storm, and were not affected by either. Its
northern limit was bounded by a line, drawn from some point not far north
of Trenton, New Jersey, north-eastward, and north of Worcester,
Massachusetts. I was about forty miles south of its northern limit, and
north of its center. During that day, and the next, there was wind from
S. W. to S. E., inclusive, including the gale, and _from no other
quarter_. It did not at any time veer to the W. or N. W. After the passage
of the storm-cloud, the wind was very light. When this intense portion of
the storm passed over the valley of the Connecticut, its longest axis was
from S. S. E. to N. N. W., and the _wind was S. E. the whole length of
it_. In its passage from the longitude of Trenton to Boston, there was N.
W. wind at one point, and but one, and that was in the iron region, at the
N. W. corner of Connecticut, at the northern limit of the intense cloud,
and owing, doubtless, to some local cause. The direction of the wind in
that storm was in accordance with what is generally true of our storms.
The wind on the front of the storm depends upon its shape. If the storm is
long in proportion to its width (and no other _violent_ autumnal or winter
storm has been investigated, to my knowledge), the wind blows axially, or
obliquely, on its front. Thus, if long from S. E. to N. W., the wind on
its front will blow from the S. E. So, if the storm is long from S. W. to
N. E., and has a south-eastern lateral extension, with an easte